John Cooke, MD, PhD

Clinical Focus

• Cardiology (Heart)
• Cardiology (Heart), Preventive
• Cardiovascular Disease
• Vascular Medicine

Administrative Appointments

• Associate Director (Education and Training), Stanford Cardiovascular Institute (2007 - present)
• Director, Training program in Vascular Medicine and Biology (1991 - 2007)

Honors and Awards

• Master of the Society for Vascular Medicine, Society for Vascular Medicine (2009)
• Established Investigator Award, American Heart Association (1995)
• Teaching Award, Dept of Medicine (2001)
• "Best Doctors in the Bay Area", San Francisco Magazine (2003,2005)
• President, Society for Vascular Medicine (2005-2007)

Professional Education

Postdoctoral Advisees

Yohannes Ghebremariam , Ngan Huang , Arwen Hunter , Ji Eun Lee , Binte Abdul Jalil Rufaihah , Porama Thanaporn

Graduate & Fellowship Program Affiliations

• Medicine

Web Site Links

• My Lab Site

Industry Relationships

Stanford is committed to ethical and transparent interactions with our industry partners. It is our policy to disclose payments of $5,000 or more, equity valued at $5,000 or more in a publicly traded company, or any equity in a privately held company, to physicians and scientists employed by Stanford University from companies or other commercial entities with which they interact as part of their professional activities. View Full Information

Research Interests

Dr. Cooke is Professor of Medicine and Associate Director (Education and Training)of the Stanford Cardiovascular Institute. His research group performs translational work in vascular regeneration from molecule to man. The goal is to transfer basic research insights into clinical trials using a vertically integrated approach with an array of biochemical and molecular tools, cellular and animal models, and clinical research techniques. Our mission is to to build new blood vessels, reverse vascular senescence, and to improve vascular health.

Our clinical research is focused on patients with peripheral arterial disease (PAD). We are testing new therapies for angiogenesis and vascular regeneration including novel small molecules and cell therapy. The usual endpoints of our trials are functional capacity (eg. peak walking time), relief of ischemic pain or wound healing. Ongoing trials include gene and cell therapy for enhancing angiogenesis; as wel as a small molecule for increasing oxygen diffusion.

The basic research is focused on induced pluripotential stem cells (iPSCs) for vascular regeneration. We are developing cell-permeant proteins and new chemical entities for nuclear reprogramming, and for differentiation of iPSCs into endothelial cells. Human iPSC-derived endothelial cells are currently being tested in our murine model of PAD. Studies underway include genetic, epigenetic, mitochondrial, and functional characterization of human iPSCs derived from viral versus protein-based strategies. We anticipate that cell permeant peptides will avoid the concerns raised by DNA-based approaches (eg. integration of foreign DNA into the host chromosome), and will provide more control over dosing and duration of action of the reprogramming factors. We are also interested to discover new determinants of endothelial lineage that may enhance the yield of ECs derived from iPSCs. It will be important to determine if iPSC-derived ECs from patients with PAD have...

Clinical Trials

• Abdominal Aortic Aneurysms: Simple Treatment or Prevention (AAA: STOP) Recruiting

Publications

• Cholinergic modulation of angiogenesis: Role of the 7 nicotinic acetylcholine receptor. Wu JC, Chruscinski A, De Jesus Perez VA, Singh H, Pitsiouni M, Rabinovitch M, Utz PJ, Cooke JP. J Cell Biochem. 2009; 108 (2): 433-46
• Embryonic stem cell-derived endothelial cells for treatment of hindlimb ischemia. Huang NF, Niiyama H, De A, Gambhir SS, Cooke JP. J Vis Exp. 2009; (23)
• Dimethylarginine dimethylaminohydrolase overexpression enhances insulin sensitivity. Sydow K, Mondon CE, Schrader J, Konishi H, Cooke JP. Arterioscler Thromb Vasc Biol. 2008; 28 (4): 692-7
• Endothelial nicotinic acetylcholine receptors and angiogenesis. Cooke JP, Ghebremariam YT. Trends Cardiovasc Med. 2008; 18 (7): 247-53
• A central role for nicotinic cholinergic regulation of growth factor-induced endothelial cell migration. Ng MK, Wu J, Chang E, Wang BY, Katzenberg-Clark R, Ishii-Watabe A, Cooke JP. Arterioscler Thromb Vasc Biol. 2007; 27 (1): 106-12